A Future Car Designer's Dream

[OriginalCheezIt]

I really hate how American cars are the laughing stock of the automotive world... you can all accuse me of "oh, Americans just have to be the best at EVERYTHING" but it's my dream to one day build the greatest car (Jeremy Clarkson voice in 3...2...1...) IN THE WORLD.

I'm not a "save the manual" guy, I'm not "Oh my 670 HP Mustang the best car EVERRRR, screw all the foreign crap". I see awesome imports, supercars and the like, learn about them and what they are doing that makes them so great and one day plan (I'm 16, give me about 10 years) to apply what I have learned and create a car that ISN'T a total laughing stock, in fact I want it to set the bar, to be a car to compare others too.

And I'm not the first one to have this vision. I don't want to be associated with Ferrari or Lamborghini, I want to be associated with cars like the Pagani Huayra, the Lexus LFA, and the Bugatti Veyron. Cars that were a vision of their respective creators' idea of perfection, symbols of absolute, no compromise engineering. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so.

But here's a question:
Do you think an American car company could ever produce a car of that caliber, or do you think the pinnacle of automotive engineering will remain in Europe?

ADD: The Viper is the closest American car I've seen to what I'm talking about.

In 2000, I think that the American three were indeed behind the rest of the automotive world, but I genuinely do not believe that to be the case now. They can compete with Germany & Japan just fine. All they had to do was get the hell out of Detroit and put money into r&d rather than UAW contracts, which they have in a large way. Designed in America, built in Mexico or Canada and all the better for it.

I'm from the Pontiac/Waterford area (suburbs of Detroit), so I know what you mean
With that said, I would like to see Detroit make a comeback.

Then you have smaller up starts like Tesla who are building cars that could realistically shape the future of all automobiles. If that's not awesome, I'm not sure what is.

I honestly can't believe I forgot Tesla.

 

[Beeblebrox237]

I think an American car could be at that caliber, but it would have to be approached with the same passion that the cars you mentioned were. Europe certainly has the best history of incredible dream cars, but there's no reason why an American could make a company in America and build such a car. It would have to have insane attention to detail, though, instead of relying on perfomrance and power to amaze. The big three could never make a car like that, but a passionate visionary with enoughmoney to develop something liek the Zonda could definitely do it.

 

[Slash]

Nowadays, I think that most American cars produced are just to make cars cheaply. In the old days, cars were actually cars....I mean it's a bit tough to explain without pictures. Things just aren't the same anymore.

 

[xNEVER-ONEx]

The Viper is probably the coolest car you can get right now, so no, not all american cars are laughable.

 

[Slash]

The Viper is probably the coolest car you can get right now, so no, not all american cars are laughable.

I wouldn't say the coolest, the GT500, Boss 302 and Vette are up there as well.

 

[SRV2LOW4ME]

Nope, American automakers are squeezed to the breaking point by the UAW/CAW and are left with not much to experiment or create with, unfortunately.

They're really only willing to put money into names that they know will sell (ie. Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, Challenger/'Cuda) and can't afford, or aren't willing, to take many chances on something as expensive and time consuming of a project.

It all comes down to pennies and cents, and creating something like that doesn't have the return needed to be justified.

 

[homeforsummer]

Nowadays, I think that most American cars produced are just to make cars cheaply. In the old days, cars were actually cars....I mean it's a bit tough to explain without pictures. Things just aren't the same anymore.

I'd disagree with that. You only need look at what America was churning out through the 70s-90s (for the most part - there were exceptions) and compare it to today's stuff to see that the U.S. industry is on the way back up.

The reason European imports are as popular right now as they are in the States is because Europe was making some bloody brilliant stuff when America was at its most complacent and producing dross.

Nowadays, even the cheapest American stuff can happily compete with Japanese or European equivalents. As Toyota and Honda churn out dull stuff like the Corolla and Civic, or the Camry, manufacturers like Ford are really hitting back with the Focus and Fusion.

Move up the food chain and stuff like the Caddy CTS-V is easily rated as highly by the media as rival BMWs or Mercedes, and then there's the Tesla Model S which is pretty much rendering the automotive media speechless around the world (and making some European automakers think very hard indeed about what their next luxury sedan should be like).

It's not quite back to the heyday of the 50s and 60s where everyone bought American because it was the best they could lay their hands on, but then that applies to any market - global imports only really took off in the 1970s and the US failed to react (as did the UK, and look what happened to our car industry). But the cars America is producing today are probably the best they've been since the really iconic stuff from the middle of last century.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

You are forgetting a few:

You just have to take a look at Ford's immensely strong current lineup to tell that they are making huge strides. The Mustang, Fiesta, Focus, Fusion, F150, and Taurus are all exceptional cars and each of them could take their particular class in a competition. Then remember that each of those models (aside from the Fusion) has at least one special variant (in the Mustang's case, the 200mph, 660hp GT500!) which have all received near universal acclaim (Taurus SHO is a little less stellar). The Raptor is a product that is essentially a worlds first and a world's only. Ford is on a roll right now and seem to be continuing the progress.

I still see GM and Chrysler as having problems, but that's not to say there aren't good products there as well. The C7 Corvette is shaping up to be a world beater, and the new Viper has been very well received. Even the entry level stuff is pretty good. The Chevy Sonic is finally achieving what GM hoped the Aveo might, and it does it with cool stuff like this motorcycle-esque gauge cluster:

Cadillac has been throwing solid punches for about a decade now. If you would have told me in 2000 that Cadillac would be mentioned in the same breath as BMW, Mercedes Benz, Audi, or even Lexus, I would have laughed. The Cadillac turnaround was profound, and they seem to keep getting better.

In 2000, I think that the American three were indeed behind the rest of the automotive world, but I genuinely do not believe that to be the case now. They can compete with Germany & Japan just fine. All they had to do was get the hell out of Detroit and put money into r&d rather than UAW contracts, which they have in a large way. Designed in America, built in Mexico or Canada and all the better for it.

 

[Celicaas]

American cars Were iconic back in the day , from when The T Model were produced till the mid 90s there were some great Examples ,Though the 40s 50 and 60s IMO all of them were iconic , but The 70s nad 80s They started Using this imports kind of designs ,for example the dodge challenger in the late 70s was a rebadged mitsubishi and that was awful for a car which was an american icon . But on the otherhand They were lots of Cars in america which were great Back in the 70s 80s and even 90s periods and were very american like , such as The full size american cars and the Corvette ZR1 And the Viper , So american cars were very original but nowadays they are just complete knockoffs

 

[Joey D]

American cars today are way better than they were 10+ years ago. The 80's and 90's was probably one of the worse times for American cars since a vast majority of the stuff the Big Three was making was just crap. It's the reason why Toyota and Honda sold so well during this time, people were sick of dealing with junk. Even going back through the 70's, 60's and 50's, American cars were all that great. Yes, they're iconic and are cult classics, but from an engineering and built perspective they weren't great vehicles.

Today though the American automakers are building some really good stuff. Cars like the Focus and the Cruze shows that America does know how to build a small car that isn't awful. The new Impala and Malibu from GM and the Fusion from Ford are all great mid-sized vehicles too. Chrysler is finally starting to come around too, especially with the Grand Cherokee which has some really good build quality and a nice design.

Give it a few more years, you'll see even more stuff start to pop up that is really good and gives the so called "benchmark vehicles" a run for their money.

Then you have smaller up starts like Tesla who are building cars that could realistically shape the future of all automobiles. If that's not awesome, I'm not sure what is.

 

[Slash]

American cars Were iconic back in the day , from when The T Model were produced till the mid 90s there were some great Examples ,Though the 40s 50 and 60s IMO all of them were iconic , but The 70s nad 80s They started Using this imports kind of designs ,for example the dodge challenger in the late 70s was a rebadged mitsubishi and that was awful for a car which was an american icon . But on the otherhand They were lots of Cars in america which were great Back in the 70s 80s and even 90s periods and were very american like , such as The full size american cars and the Corvette ZR1 And the Viper , So american cars were very original but nowadays they are just complete knockoffs

Amen.